


aftermath (you clipped your own wings)

by someawkwardprose



Series: Gifts [4]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Ableism, Angst, Depression, Hopeful Ending, Hurt James "Rhodey" Rhodes, M/M, Mentions of PTSD, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Protective Tony Stark, Rhodey-centric, internalized ableism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-08
Updated: 2017-04-08
Packaged: 2018-10-16 09:44:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10568721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/someawkwardprose/pseuds/someawkwardprose
Summary: James Rhodes can't walk. But it's not only his back that feels broken.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [anonemone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anonemone/gifts).



> Disclaimer: while I tried to be as sensitive as I could be, I'm abled, and I might have hit some sore spots. feel free to yell at me, I will change it if you are made uncomfortable. 
> 
> this is a birthday present for my fellow rhodey-lover, [cyborgrhodey](http://cyborgrhodey.tumblr.com/), who is now old and wanted a rhodey-centric fic. that I can do. it's all in British English, so yes ao3 I have spelt it correctly because we don't drop our goddamn u's.

Vision fires, and Jim is falling.

The systems are failing, and the comms are fried, but he thinks he can hear Tony’s pained yell of _“Rhodes”._

He barely has time to think before the impact makes his world go dark.

* * *

 

“You’ll regain some feeling in your legs with time, I hope. But I’m sorry, sir, it’s unlikely you’ll ever walk again.”

The doctor continues to drone on, but Jim can’t hear him, his world narrowed down to a tunnel of white noise. He can’t walk. He won’t be able to fly. God, the armour, they’ll take it away from him. Jim can feel his breaths quicken, but it’s distant, as if it isn’t his body that is shutting down. His mind feels like his legs, fuzzy, weak, useless, and _oh God, he can’t walk-_

* * *

 

Tony comes back from Siberia, but he’s different. Bruised and beaten and broken, and not just on the outside. Jim feels sick, but what can he do? He’s broken, just like Tony is. Just like the life they’d built together.

If he could have been there, maybe it would have been a fair fight. Maybe there wouldn’t have been a fight at all. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

But Jim can’t move his goddamn legs, and Tony won’t meet his eyes, and there’s a hunk of vibranium instead of an elephant in the room.

* * *

 

_Falling, falling, oh god, he’s still falling, and he knows what’s about to happen, no, he can’t relive this-_

Jim never was a screamer, but he wakes up panting, covered in sweat. The blankets are twisted around him, suffocating him, but he can’t kick them off, so he just lies there, frustrated, as his heart beats too fast, and tries to will the adrenaline from his bloodstream.

His head turns to the other side of the bed, and it hurts, hurts that it’s empty and the pillows are undisturbed. It shouldn’t hurt, Jim was used to sleeping alone, God knows how many arguments Tony’s insomnia cause over the years. But it does hurt, because right now he needs Tony, and Tony isn’t here.

“F-FRIDAY,” he coughs, his voice shaky.

“Yes, Lieutenant Colonel Rhodes?”

It’s the address that does it. Because he’s not, he’s not that man anymore. Christ, he’s barely a man anymore. He’s officially out of the Air Force - on medical leave, but he’ll get an honorable discharge soon enough. Jim’s a mess, he’s falling apart. No wonder Tony’s not here.

“Nevermind.”

* * *

Tony does what he always does when he’s guilty and hurt - he retreats to the workshop to lick his wounds. It takes two weeks, but Jim wakes up one morning with braces at the end of the bed, and a Tony who looks a complex mix between proud and guilty.

It takes another two weeks for Jim to use them, and even then, he’s left exhausted and frustrated.

“That’s just a first test.” Tony tells him, trying to seem cheerful.

“Yeah.”

“Give me some feedback. Anything you can think of. Shock absorption. Lateral movement. Cup holder?”

Tony keeps trying, trying to act as if everything’s normal, as if Jim isn’t anything more than dead weight. Jim wishes he could do the same. His legs shake and his back hurts, but he can barely feel _anything_ , and why can’t Tony just give up already?

It’s when Tony offers to help him sit down that he snaps, fists clenching so tight his knuckles turn faintly grey.

“No, no, don't. Don't help me. Don't help me. 138. 138 combat missions. That's how many I've flown, Tony.” Jim shoves Tony away, and regrets it almost immediately as he sees guilt well up in those big brown eyes. Christ, he was such a fuck-up. Tony was only trying to help, and here he was, yelling at him. He takes a deep breath and tries again. “Every one of them could've been my last, but I flew 'em. To the fight needed to be fought. It's the same with these Accords. I signed because it was the right thing to do. And, yeah, this sucks. This is... This is a bad beat. But it hadn't change my mind. What do you think?”

Tony just looks at him, with the stare that never fails to make Jim feel like he can see every one of his thoughts, even though Jim knows he damn well can’t, because he’d always been useless with other people’s feelings. He can’t help the squirmy feeling in his guts, completely unrelated to his pain, and he tenses.

But Tony just asks: “You okay?”

“Oh yeah.”

He looks like he wants to say something else, but then the delivery guy interrupts with some much needed humour, and he manages to distract Tony for long enough that he can get away.

* * *

 

The thing is, his relationship with Tony was never about sex. They’d met when Tony was young, too young, in Jim’s opinion, to be abandoned to face the world alone. They’d been friends for years before anything happened, and even then, they’d been pretty chaste. Tony loved Jim, and Jim loved Tony, and it didn’t matter if Jim was away overseas for months or that Tony barely saw him. It was Jim and Tony, and that was never going to change.

But now, they can barely do _anything_ , and it’s killing Jim, because they took his legs from him and they can’t take Tony from him too.

He’s in the bathroom, curled under the spray of the shower, and he can’t get back up on the seat because he sent Tony away with a snapped ‘ _I’m not an invalid, I don’t need a nursemaid!’_ . His chest is heaving and all he can think is useless, useless, _useless._

They haven’t shared a bed in weeks. The only time Tony touches him is to help him, or some brief forehead kisses, and Jim can’t help but fear that Tony doesn’t - well, not love him, because Tony wasn’t as shallow as that, but want him. It’s killing him, because he knows he’ll take whatever Tony can give and Tony would do the same, but they were _happy_ and now they’re not and Jim can’t blame anyone but themselves.

The wetness in his eyes is more than just the shower water, and his legs are numb, and he wishes, just once, for a miracle.

“Rhodey?” Mortified, Jim wishes the ground would swallow him. He doesn’t want anyone to see him like this. He doesn’t want _Tony_ to see him like this. “It’s been half an hour- Jim!”

He chokes on another sob as Tony enters the room properly, and gets the full view of Jim, knocked on his ass and crying. Jim squeezes his eyes shut, and waits for the pity.

He jumps, when he feels a hand slip around his shoulders, and he opens his eyes just enough to blurrily see Tony, sliding in beside him, still fully clothed. It’s such dumb thing, but it makes Jim choke up even more, and he buries his face in Tony’s neck and cries, as Tony rubs his back under the cooling spray.

* * *

 

“I’m very pleased with the way the nerves are healing up - I assume you’ve had an increase in feeling, Jim?”

Helen smiles at him, and Jim can’t feel anything other than grateful that at least Tony managed to get a friendly face to see him. Helen Cho might have specialised in her work with the Cradle, but she was still the best Doctor Jim had met. She didn’t pity him the way other did, just accepted that Jim was a mess, and didn’t call him out on it. She also let Jim get away with just sitting on the den couch as she did her examination.

“A bit, yeah.”

“Well, I estimate most, if not all feeling should return within the next six months. The swelling has gone down significantly. You might even get a limited range of movement,” she smiled, and raised an eyebrow at her tablet. “Although I see Tony has already tried to speed up the process.”

Tony flips her the finger from where he is, scribbling at his own tablet. He’d already gotten the braces patented, along with a whole other range of prosthetics that Jim was pretty sure started off with a replacement arm for a certain fugitive assassin. Well, Pepper had said SI needed to diversify once again, if they wanted to keep their stocks up.

Tony hadn’t left Jim side much in the past three days since his meltdown, no matter how angry Jim got. And as much as Jim didn’t want to admit it, it helped, having Tony there, to bring him out of his melancholic thoughts. Jim wanted to see how much he could push, what would make Tony leave, but at the same time, he wanted Tony to stay, and he hated himself for being so needy.

“I think, given time, you should be able to leave the wheelchair for short periods - without the braces. I’m sorry I can’t do more, Jim.” Helen really does look sorry, and Jim has to swallow his disappointment. He knows how bad spinal injuries were, and he knew he had it better than most. Jim smiles as she leaves, but drops the act when it’s just him and Tony.

Tony doesn’t say anything, but he moves closer to Jim, and slings an arm around his shoulders. Jim leans against him and takes a peek at the tablet and raises his eyebrows.

“Braces. In the armour. Really, Tones?” Tony smiles unapologetically.

“You might be able to walk normally in the armour, since it braces your back,” Tony’s eyes go distant for a moment. “As long as you're not shot down, you might even be able to fly.”

Jim thinks about it. He knows all about PTSD, knows it’ll take time before he could get in the armour without feeling like he’s going to throw up, never mind be in the air. But being able to fly again...Jim thinks it might be worth it.

“Well, make sure there’s better cushioning in it this time, genius.”

\--

Jim’s in bed, and Tony is fiddling with one of his new gauntlets, but he keeps looking shiftily at the door, like he wants to go down to the workshop.

But he doesn’t, and Jim feels as grateful as he does needy, that Tony is here, with him, rather than surrounding himself with machines.

He feels himself drifting off, until the bed shifts and he grabs onto Tony’s wrist groggily.

“Stay.”

It sounds so pathetic, and he can feel his cheeks heat up in embarrassment, but Tony just smiles softly and kisses him on the forehead.

“I’m just putting the potentially dangerous object away so I don’t accidentally kill us in bed,” he murmurs, reaching over to drop the gauntlet on his bedside table and flicking the light off, before sliding under the covers.

Jim spares a moment to feel angry at himself, before Tony wraps his arms around him, and sleep tugs him under again.

* * *

 

Jim wakes up panting, his heart beating too fast and too hard. He reaches out for Tony, who murmurs sleepily and tugs him closer. Their legs are tangled together, and Jim can feel his body relaxing, cradled by Tony’s arms and his soothing voice.

It’s not fixed. They’ll never be like they were. Tony’s still a mess and Jim is still barely keeping it together. But they’ll get better.

They always do

**Author's Note:**

> this is unbeta'd because I'm lazy and I cba with my own work but if you've spotted something, hmu!


End file.
